West Memphis making moves to seal TIGER grant deal

West Memphis making moves to seal TIGER grant deal

Council waives bidding to keep process moving

news@theeveningtimes.com

It’s taking more to land the West Memphis Transportation Investment Generating Economic Recovery (TIGER) grant than expected.

The city was awarded $9.75 million dollars to develop an intermodal facility adjacent to the Port of West Memphis and to improve the Friday-Graham rail spur to handle the heavy loads from two different railroads.

With the city’s Office of Economic Development director’s chair currently vacant after former director Ward Wimbish took a similar job on the west coast, details concerning the TIGER grant were left to the three consulting firms the office had been dealing with during the process.

The three firms left in place for the purpose of continuity to hammer out the details were Advance Economic Development Services, Logistics Consultants LLC, and Steven McLaws. But City Attorney David Peeples saw the bills mounting up and proposed to City Council that they heed the letter of the law and waive competitive bidding during the council’s last meeting in October.

Mayor Bill Johnson explained the purpose of the action to City Council.

“We’ve worked for five years on the TIGER grant for the city,” said Johnson.

“It’s a difficult proposition to pin down and we’ve needed consultants. Honestly, it’s not pinned down today. We hired outside consultants to keep us out of trouble. The City Attorney noted that some of them are collectively reaching the $20,000 limit. We need this ordinance. We are asking you to waive competitive bidding for these three companies.”

The Mayor emphasized no budget impact would arise from the move. But the city attorney advice was to waive the competitive bidding as the aggregate bill approached the $20,000 bid threshold.

“Within the next month we hope to have this wrapped up and have a good report,” said Peeples.

City Council read out and approved waiving the competitive bid process for the three consulting companies.

By John Rech